- 04/06/2025
Catch up on all the climate news with Daisy Page.
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00:00Hello and welcome to Kenton Climate Live on KMTV. I'm Daisy Page and in this show we discuss all
00:21things related to environmental issues in the county. How is climate change impacting Kent,
00:26what are communities in the county doing to tackle it and how can you help at home?
00:30Each week we'll be taking a deep dive into new environmental issues in the county and I'll be
00:34joined by expert guests. First night, as a local apiary in Aylesford prepares for its first summer
00:40offering hands-on beekeeping experience, our reporter Kristen went along to suit up to learn
00:45more about our county's honeybees. She also found out about growing threats to our native pollinators,
00:51the yellow invasive yellow-legged Asian hornet and what we can do to help protect the hive.
00:58How much do you know about the honeybee? Personally, I thought I knew a lot but it turns out there's
01:03much more to the insect than I'd previously thought. This is just one sheet of honey and it weighs about
01:07three pounds, it's quite heavy. The bees here, they are flying all around but this is just a little
01:14bit of the honey that they produce every single day. But beyond the honey and the beeswax, the threat of
01:19yellow-legged hornets is a serious issue as they can wipe out entire hives of our native honeybees.
01:25What they will do, they will hawk a colony of honeybees. So once they've found a colony,
01:30they will fly around in front of it catching the honeybees as they come back to their, because
01:35obviously the honeybees are bringing stores and that, they will catch a honeybee on the wing.
01:39The wing muscles are the protein that they need to feed to their larvae. They don't eat the bees,
01:44they just need the protein to feed to their larvae that then grow into adult hornets. If you see in
01:51your loft, your shed, a little embryo nest which is like a golf ball paper mache inside, in your
01:58eaves, your roof and things like that, just have a good look at it. You know, that could be an Asian
02:03hornet queen, it could be a European hornet queen. If you see one, snap it and report it on the Asian
02:08hornet watch app. This is an Asian hornet and it's been newly named as the yellow-legged hornet.
02:13Each one of these can consume almost 13 kilograms of insects in its lifetime, whether that be wasps,
02:19honeybees or anything else. In comparison to European hornets, the yellow-legged hornets are
02:24slightly smaller and a lot darker in colour. So if you're looking out for them, those are the things
02:28to look for. In a yearly life cycle, a nest of Asian hornets can consume 12 and a half kilos
02:33of insects. That's honeybees, flies, butterflies, spiders, anything. So you imagine it, the weight
02:41of 12 bags of sugar in weight of insects per nest, per year, and yeah, they just decimate
02:49all the local, you know, insect life. So this trap is designed to allow anything back out
02:55that isn't an Asian hornet, like your wasps and your flies and stuff like that. The more queens
03:00we catch now, the less nests that are produced. But it's not just hornets causing problems,
03:06as habitat loss has forced some honeybees to build hives inside homes. Jason has been doing hive
03:11removals for four years now, but with honeybees losing more and more of their natural habitat,
03:16it's not surprising that 2025 has been a particularly busy year. So by becoming educated, planting things
03:23like lavender and thyme in your garden, and by trapping or reporting yellow-legged hornet sightings,
03:28we can slowly but surely help the bees live a little easier. Kristen Hawthorne for KMTV in Ealesford.
03:40Now, the government implemented a ban on the sale of disposable vapes on Sunday. With refillable
03:46and rechargeable vape still legal, the ban seems to be more about tackling the environmental impact
03:52of the product. To understand a bit more about the ban, we spoke to vape expert Dr Marina Murphy earlier.
03:58When it comes to this ban on disposables, it's not a health issue, it was an environment issue,
04:03and it was actually brought in under the Environment Act rather than any Tobacco and Vape Act,
04:08which is going through Parliament at the moment. So it was an environmental concern
04:11that led to this ban on disposables. Because of course, they should be recycled,
04:18but like a lot of electronic goods in the UK, there isn't a great framework to facilitate that.
04:25So they haven't been recycled as much as they should be, or at all in some cases.
04:32Now, this weekend, a Romney Marsh campaign group will be taking to the countryside in a walk against
04:38mass solar energy schemes. The hands-off our Marsh group will be walking on footpaths and country
04:43lanes to raise awareness of the threat posed by the scheme. I was joined by Colin Woollard,
04:48who told us about why their campaign group started.
04:52We found out in the tail end of last year in November that NJET was scoping for a substation
04:59and a very, very large solar scheme in New Church. We started to do a bit of digging to try and find out
05:06exactly what was going to happen to our village. We were quite horrified very quickly when we went on
05:12to the tech register, which is run by NISO, which is the grid operator, to find that it was proposed
05:18that about 1,000 acres thereabouts of prime agricultural land was going to be chewed up with
05:25this solar project. And then within a couple of days of us putting it out on social media, what we
05:30discovered too concerned residents. We then found that there was another scheme at Old Romney, which was
05:361,500 acres. They very, very quickly went to a public consultation event in Ivy Church and in New Romney
05:43to try and persuade local residents what they needed. And then as we dug a little bit deeper, we realized
05:52there was perhaps another two or three additional to that. So we were potentially looking at two and a
05:57half to 3,000, maybe 4,000 acres of what is grade one, grade two productive farmland being chewed up
06:05with these solar schemes. So that's what prompted us to try and get a group together to try and raise
06:12awareness and then see what we can do to try and have some kind of say in it. Because all of these
06:18projects are over 50 megawatts. They're regarded as NSIP, nationally significant infrastructure.
06:25Local council doesn't get to decide what happens. This goes straight to the Secretary of State for
06:32Net Zero, Mr. Ed Miliband. And as it seems with all the schemes going through in Lincolnshire,
06:40these are just getting rubber stamped. All the environmental concerns, any resident concerns,
06:45any of that just seems to be pushed to one side and they're just getting rubber stamped. And we just
06:50think that there needs to be a bit more joined up thinking because at the end of the day,
06:55food security must somehow trump this sort of headlong rush into renewables. We have other
07:03options to make energy. And with the best in the world, solar is an intermittent energy source.
07:10And we cannot get through a winter just on solar and wind. We need to have backup sources. So to send
07:18all of these fields into 20 plus 20 year lease agreements for solar, our food security is going
07:26to suffer as a result. New church is just going to get swallowed up to the north. Old Romney is
07:32completely surrounded. And these are just the two that have come up for public consultation. We know from
07:38the tech register there are other schemes in the pipeline. Now, the companies say that they're going to be
07:44given vital support to the transition of these renewable energies with the UK government goal of
07:51reaching net zero by 2050. So some people might be saying, why not these farmlands?
07:58Well, what is more important, food or intermittent energy and most expensive energy? It's not as if
08:05anybody can make a case that any of our electrical power has got cheaper in the last 10 years.
08:12And, you know, particularly as we saw with the Ukraine invasion, energy prices went through the
08:19roof. And they might have eased off a little bit, but the trajectory is still ever higher. Renewables,
08:26unfortunately, because of the way they're priced, are the most expensive form of energy. What we should
08:31have done, what governments should have done, is to put investment into Dungeness. Dungeness is screaming out
08:38for a Dungeness C or the small modular reactors. That's 365 days a year, 24 hours a day power,
08:46not this intermittent. When I know, I know plenty about solar, I've got 140 kilowatts of solar here
08:53for my business, and I know what it can and what it can't do. So when I go into the consultation
08:57meeting with the solar developers, I'm simply not going to be swayed by their, you know, their
09:03arguments that it works all the time, because it simply doesn't. This weekend, June 8th, Romney Marsh
09:08residents will actually be joining a national community walk. Can you tell us a bit more about
09:12this, where the walk will be starting, where the journey is going to be taking you, and what it's about?
09:19Well, it's a short walk around the area of Old Romney that will be directly affected. So what we
09:25will do, we'll set off from the Rosencrown Pub in Old Romney. We'll walk approximately north
09:31direction to pick up Sycamore Farm and walk around the edge of an existing 20 megawatt
09:38solar installation that's been there, I think, since about 2014, 2015. So, you know, people,
09:45local residents can come along on the walk. It's not a particularly difficult walk. It's a couple of miles.
09:51Hopefully, we'll have a nice sunny day to be able to walk through some beautiful countryside,
09:55and they'll get an idea of what the existing small 20 megawatt scheme looks like, and then to see the
10:02fields that are going to be affected by a completely different style of solar installation. The small
10:1120 megawatt scheme at Sycamore Farm, their low height, you can't see it, you can't see it from any
10:18direction. The landscaping is well established. It's a completely different proposition to what's
10:24being proposed. Now, before we go for a break, it's time to look at this week's Creature Feature.
10:30This week's Creature can be found across the country. They're small and brightly coloured,
10:34and the biggest hint of all, they share the same name as me. Well, have you guessed it? If not,
10:38let's take a look at this week's Creature Feature. Welcome to today's Creature Feature. Today's
10:43Creature is less furry and more flowery than you might expect. I'm talking about the Oxeye Daisy,
10:48Leucanthemum vulgari. This springtime visitor is closely related to a number of other daisy-type
10:53flowers that spring up around the UK, with its defining difference being its size, as it's much
10:57larger than its more well-known cousins. It is also known to have had its uses in traditional medicine
11:02due to its supposed anti-inflammatory properties, which led to it being used as a treatment for
11:07conditions like asthma in the past. These flowers are known to blossom around the UK from May until
11:12September, and are an important source of nectar for insects that rely on it as a source of food,
11:17such as bees and hoverflies. Its Latin name, Leucanthemum vulgari, translates from ancient
11:22Greek to common white due to their abundance in the hotter months and their bright white appearance.
11:27This flower also has roots in divination and mysticism, with the French using it to predict
11:32romantic encounters in the past, which has over time become the game, they love me, they love me not,
11:36which is commonly played by school children across the country today. That's all from this week's Creature
11:40feature. Thank you for watching. It's time for us to take a break. When we're back, we'll be talking
11:46about how Kent's curlews population is on the rise, and we'll be hearing from the Big Cat Sanctuary
11:51about their newest arrival. All that and more, we'll see you soon.
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16:45And this...
16:47This Perth, you in the lead-up to it while the mother was pregnant you were able to do some ultrasounds on it and I understand this is a little bit new compared to what's happened in the past.
16:55yeah um it's a really good approach um our lead um carer simon jackman at the big cat sanctuary
17:03he was working with leila to um make sure she was comfortable and we were doing it in the right way
17:08and then working alongside our vet bow um yeah we're able to do the ultrasound which was really
17:13effective and we're we're able to see that she was pregnant and then from there we kind of um
17:18it was really good for us a good opportunity for us to kind of get everything ready for leila and
17:23the cub um for the birth so yeah the team has done excellently i know ultrasounds aren't always the
17:30most comfortable thing for humans how did the mother react to having an ultrasound how did she
17:35find all of that yeah she was fine um you know simon's been working with her for years so she's
17:41completely comfortable um and obviously we shared a video to show that process we like to be as
17:47transparent as possible but also educate people on how we work with the cats under our care and
17:52yeah leila leila was great um it was it was a beautiful moment and a great one for the team
17:58to celebrate and this isn't leila's first car visit no she's she's uh she's used to being a mom now so
18:06she's had it's a fourth litter um but it's so important for the endangered species breeding program
18:12so obviously her cubs have had gone off to wildlife institutions uh across europe um to help with that
18:19healthy captive population uh providing that critical safety net for their for their species
18:24and obviously we're working directly with snow leopard trust who are the main conservation um
18:30organization for snow leopards in the wild so yeah so it's a really really uh important thing to happen
18:36now if we were going to send some viewers down to the big cat century would we be able to see
18:40the little cub yet or do we need to wait a little bit longer to be able to to see to see her yeah so
18:47unfortunately you won't be able to see her yet uh we're only monitoring her through cctv cameras in
18:52the den um once she's had all of her vaccines and jabs then around three months uh is when she'll be
18:58taking her first steps outside with mum so um yeah we've got a little bit more time to wait but in the
19:03meantime we're going to be sharing stuff on social media um you know cute videos of of mum and cub
19:09um and just seeing her develop as well um you know they they grow very quick um and even just when i
19:16was in with her the other day doing a health check she um she's got razor sharp claws already they're
19:21like little needles um she's got a big full belly but yeah she's growing every day um but unfortunately
19:27three months is is around the time where she will be going outside for the first time well three months
19:32sounds like it'll take us to somewhere during the summer holiday so i'm sure that would be
19:37welcome news to some parents out there um you say she's growing already how big is she going to get
19:41do we know how much she weighs at the moment as well yeah um i mean when she's she's she's weighing
19:49around 1.1 kg roughly um but i mean that's changing every day because of of the milk that she's having
19:57um so yeah she's she's gonna get to about 40 kg when she's older potentially around that that weight
20:03so yeah a lot of growing to do but she's she's doing great um and you know we're working with her
20:10every single day and what's really that yarko uh the dad uh he's also in the den next door so he's able
20:17to keep a close eye and watch the cub develop which is really important and do you have any specific
20:23challenges when breeding snow leopards at places like the big cat sanctuary when they are in some
20:29form of captivity not necessarily challenges i think it's just um you know we've been doing this
20:36for 25 years now uh we're a center of excellence uh globally for for wildcats so it's we're used to
20:43this sort of thing you know we've we've had over around 30 cats over the last 25 years uh endangered
20:49species that we've cared for so it's it's just we've kind of built up that experience to know
20:55exactly how to how to manage cubs when when they're born um and it's something that we're
21:01continually developing obviously with the ultrasound it's just a new new another technique that we've
21:06added to our list of things that we're um yeah working on so we're in a good position and we're
21:12excited to support the breeding program moving forward i'm sure layla's doing a great job being a
21:18mom but what does the daily care look like from you for new guys as to keep us the ranges at the
21:24big cap sanctuary to to look after this newborn cub yeah it's literally just working um with the team
21:33um checking ccv cameras uh monitoring how they're getting on we let out mum a few times a day so she
21:39can go to the toilet and stretch her legs and have some food and then she'll go back in with cub
21:44um and then every two to three days we'll go in with cub and just weigh the carbon make sure that
21:49she's growing and developing well and if there are any signs where we're um cautious that there might
21:55be an issue then we can call on call them of that team straight away and they'll come down but
22:00so far so good and and it's it's working out well well it sounds like it's a fantastic news for the
22:06sanctuary i'm sure in a few months time when she makes those first steps and perhaps some lucky visitors
22:12might get to get their eyes on those and talking about the visitors who come i guess their important
22:16role in actually keeping successes like this alive because i mean i guess they're providing valuable
22:21memberships or donations uh to the big cat century yeah i mean it we wouldn't be here without the
22:28people that support us so we're in a an amazing position that uh we have so much um so many people
22:34from around the world uh you know in australia north america canada um and across europe that support
22:41the big cat sanctuary whether it's through memberships and donations and also uh becoming
22:46adopters which is really nice uh which will be for the cub available and probably in the next three
22:51months as well um so yeah we're in a we're in a good position and and that's because of the work we
22:56do uh for big cat conservation and also cat rescues well the next step now is going to be naming her
23:04i was having a quick think just while we're talking there she looks quite spotty so we could call her
23:08spotty but i feel like that you've probably got to have a leopard or something called spotty already
23:13i don't know is there any favorites going around the team at the moment um there's no favorites at
23:18the minute um we're i think we're going to correlate a lot of the uh options in the next few days and
23:27then we'll kind of like put our favorites there and then we'll put it to the public to vote so we're
23:32also going to put out there and people will be able to decide um the best name for the cub but our
23:37spotty is probably not what we're going to go with okay what are some of the other names of your
23:43cups just so people get a little taste oh uh i know spotty's nice like uh you know we have lions
23:51that we uh some of their names uh you've got zuri azula and kasanga so uh very african-based um
23:59not spotty yeah i mean to be fair like we have an asian golden cat called frank
24:04frank so you know who knows it might be spotty you know we listen and we don't judge
24:10is is important so uh no spotty it could be it who knows well cam thank you so much for your time
24:18you're very welcome thanks guys we are shortly approaching this year's world environment day
24:25and the focus is on tackling plastic pollution on thursday the 5th of june there will be a worldwide
24:30encouragement for people and organizations to focus on awareness and to take action in protecting the
24:36environment this event has been led by the united nation environment program since 1973 which aims
24:42to bring millions of people together across the world to make conscious efforts to restore and
24:47protect our planet and drive individuals and businesses towards sustainable change
24:53now it's time to catch up with all the latest nature news from around the county
24:57with warnings over pollen bombs forecast for the southeast meaning many people will be facing
25:02their first bout of hay fever this year took a call for volunteers as this week marks volunteer week
25:07it's time for this week's climate catch up first up pollen is on the rise the peak pollen season is
25:13upon us with typical highs in late may june and july the first grass pollen bomb is forecast to hit the
25:19southeast this friday it is predicted that many people will be getting their first bout of hay fever this
25:24summer a pollen bomb is an unofficial term to describe short bursts of high pollen production
25:29in the area there are many ways you can help to reduce your pollen exposure such as washing your
25:34clothes and face after being outside vacuuming carpets and floors regularly and wearing hats and
25:38wrap around sunglasses to prevent pollen getting in your eyes and hair next a gardening team seeks to
25:43help raise funds for heart of kent hospice blooming green will be open to flower tours on the 14th of
25:49june to help teach people about the unique world of eco flower farming all while admiring the beautiful
25:55seasonal flowers in bloom the ticket proceeds for this exclusive pre-season fundraising event will be
26:00donated to the heart of kent hospice who provide free end-of-life care to those living with a terminal
26:05illness they will also be donating 20 of funds from the pick your own flower bouquets purchased during
26:11the event and finally it is the start of volunteers week and the rspca is calling on the public to
26:16become wildlife friends the wildlife friends pledge is to take on simple tasks in home gardens and
26:21outdoor spaces to help keep wildlife out of harm's way this allows the rspca to have more time to
26:27respond to urgent cases of cruelty and neglect the animal charity has put together a new menu of quick
26:31and simple tasks people can complete to help their local wildlife such as putting away football netting
26:36and providing drinking stations that's all for this week's climate catch-up that's all the time we
26:42have thought on this week's episode of kent on climate we'll be back next week with another episode
26:46but for now from me and the team have a very lovely evening and goodbye
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